Climate Indicators

Weather News

Brief drink for parched Melbourne

Ben Domensino,
Tuesday March 13, 2018 - 16:54 AEDT

Melbourne had its heaviest shower in almost six weeks today, breaking an extended run of near-dry weather in Victoria's capital city.

Melbourne's Olympic Park registered 2.2mm this morning, ending the city's 41 day run of days with less than 1mm of rain in the gauge. This ended up being Melbourne's longest spell of days below 1mm since their 52 day stretch at the start of 2009.

While this morning's shower broke Melbourne out of an extended spell of near-dry days, it didn't come close to making up for the deficit from the past few weeks.

Last month was Melbourne's driest February in 27 years after a measly 1.6mm was recorded in the city. As of 9am today, Melbourne had only received 3.4mm of its 50mm long-term average for March.

The dry trend has also been reflected across most of Victoria in the last month and a half.

The state as a whole registered its driest February since 2009 and most locations have picked up less than five per cent of their March average rainfall so far this month.

Showers may return to Melbourne and other parts of Victoria later this week, with the best chance of any heavy falls being on Sunday, with the passage of a cold front.